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Sony/IBM/Toshiba: CELL Almost Ready

Posted by timothy on from the just-polishing-the-lock dept.

thryllkill writes "According to Gamespot the CELL processor, assumed to be the main processor for the Playstation3, is near completion. The short (and light) article also says that the chip will be used in IBM computers and Toshiba electronic devices. The CELL processor is significant because it is touted to utilize grid technology over broadband connections to make the graphics capabilities of the new Playstation many times greater than the competition."

3 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Information on El Reg by Doodlepants · · Score: 5, Informative

    El Reg has an informative piece up http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/05/sony_cell_ cpu_to_deliver/

  2. Re:Latency? by richy+freeway · · Score: 5, Informative

    Does it anywhere say Broadband Internet connection?

    No.

    Thanks for listening.

  3. Cell is an architecture, not the processor for PS3 by News+for+nerds · · Score: 5, Informative

    Cell is a scalable processor architecture, and its prefered embodiment called Broadband Engine in this patent by SCE is expected in PS3.

    While broadband in Broadband Engine obviously means high-speed interconnection between its APUs and PEs and PUs and eDRAM in the first place, its double meaning propagates through its optical interface. This Broadband-ness will initially start from optical-fiber intranet in home, then Cell spreads to servers, routers in ISP, and so on to form larger network. Rather than sharing power, its main point is sharing the same language/ISA across the network. X86 is not enough apparently, without network-awareness such as GUID and latency calculation of remote object. The patent states "1. A computer network comprising: a plurality of processors connected to said network, each of said processors comprising a plurality of first processing units having the same instruction set architecture and a second processing unit for controlling said first processing units, said first processing units being operable to process software cells transmitted over said network, each of said software cells comprising a program compatible with said instruction set architecture, data associated with said program and an identification number uniquely identifying said software cell among all of said software cells transmitted over said network. "

    I don't know what OS will be used to control them, but Linux must be one of candidates in Cell server-side.